1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to electrostatic-image-developing toner, an electrostatic image developer, a method of manufacturing electrostatic-image-developing toner, a toner cartridge, a process cartridge, a method of image formation, and image forming apparatus.
2. Related Art
Methods for visualizing image information via electrostatic latent images, including electrophotographic methods, are now going into wide use. In the electrophotographic methods, electrostatic latent images on the surface of an electrophotographic photoreceptor (or an electrostatic latent-image holding member, hereinafter abbreviated as “a photoreceptor” in some cases) are developed with electrostatic-image-developing toner (hereinafter simply referred to as “toner” too) after they undergo a charging process, a light exposure process and so on, and further subjected to a transfer process, a fixing process and so on, whereby the electrostatic latent images are visualized.
As methods of manufacturing toner, a kneading-and-pulverization method, an emulsion-polymerization-and-aggregation method and so on are known. The toner obtained by the former kneading-and-pulverization method is relatively broad in size distribution of particles and irregular in shape, so it is insufficient in performance retaining properties.
In contrast to the former method, the emulsion-polymerization-and-aggregation method is a method of manufacturing toner by forming aggregate particles equivalent in size to toner particles, and then by heating the aggregate particles to fuse and coalesce them. Further, this method allows free control from an internal layer to a surface layer in toner, thereby ensuring more precise control of particle structure.